Local News

Council may fund feasibility study requested by hotel company

Cobblestone Hotels has expressed interest in building in Brush

By Paul Albani-Burgio

Times Staff Writer

Posted:
10/24/2017 07:21:59 PM MDT

Cobblestone Hotels, the operator of the pictured hotel, has expressed interest in bringing one of its hotels to Brush but has asked the city to fund a hotel feasibility study first to prove there is enough demand for another hotel. (Wikimedia Commons)

A hotel development and operations company that specializes in bringing hotels to small communities wants Brush to pay for a study to determine whether the city could support a third hotel.

Brush Marketing Specialist Tyler Purvis told the city council Monday that a meeting was first held between representatives from the city and Wisconsin-based Cobblestone Hotels about five years ago.

"Cobblestone is different than your typical corporate hotel entity in that they generally identify smaller communities where there is a hotel need and work with local investors to make the hotel happen," he said.

Purvis said the city reached out to a handful of Brush residents after the meeting who the city thought might be able to invest in the hotel and received interest from a handful of them. However, the process never advanced beyond those discussions.

However, Cobblestone isnt't the only company who has thought recently about bringing a hotel to Brush.

Purvis said that Love's Travel Stops also reserved a spot south of their new travel stop in Brush for a potential hotel. Love's recently began working with several popular hotel brands to bring hotels to their properties.

Advertisement

However, Purvis said he had recently been informed by Love's that it has put discussion of a hotel at the Brush Love's, which will open Nov. 30, on hold until "it can get a hold on all the brands it is managing." Love's representatives presented Purvis with no time line for that process.

Despite the lack of movement on its initial effort, Purvis said Cobblestone has continued to stay in-touch with the city on and off in the years since and has recently "really pushed for Brush once again, particularly now that the Love's travel stop is opening." However, Cobblestone representatives say that a hotel feasibility study is necessary, at this point, to show that the city would be a good site for a hotel.

"If you're going to go to any financial institution they want to see numbers that this [hotel] is going to work," Purvis said. "The feasibility study provides that."

Purvis said Cobblestone has inquired with him about whether the city would be willing to fund such a study, which would cost about $8,000. Purvis said that Cobblestone has hired a Utah-based company to conduct such studies in several other cities.

According to Purvis, any study the city pays for would belong to it and could be shared with anyone, not just representatives from Cobblestone. He said the city could also stipulate in any hotel development agreements that the developer of any hotel reimburse the city for the cost of the study.

Purvis said he asked a representative from Cobblestone if such a study would determine that there was not a need for another hotel because there are already so many hotels in Fort Morgan.

"He said he didn't think so because so many people who would stay in Brush are now staying in Fort Morgan," Purvis said. "There are a lot of people who choose to go to Fort Morgan rather than stay in Brush because of their preferences for a certain brand, because of the quality of some of those hotels and for a lot of other reasons."

Purvis later clarified that the city has two hotels, a Microtel Hotel and Suites by Wyndham and an Econolodge, and "is glad they are here in Brush." Still, he said having another hotel would allow the city to capture more of the hotel market it is currently ceding to Fort Morgan.

"By having a nice hotel here it's going to bring some of them here and if you're heading west you see Brush before you see Fort Morgan so naturally you are going to draw people here," he said. "And all the [people coming for] for Brush sporting events and all the folks who [are coming specifically for Brush] instead of staying over there and eating at restaurants over there and filling up their gas over will do that here in Brush."

The council expressed approval of the concept of a third hotel in Brush and an interest in moving forward with the study.

Councilwoman Vicky Quinlin brought up the Hampton Inn in Fort Morgan, which she said was built after Halliburton Oil Field service company agreed to house a percentage of its oil field workers working in the Fort Morgan-area there. City attorney Robert "Bo" Chapin said the hotel is referred to as the Halliburton Inn by many residents.

Councilwoman Kim Dykes staffed an information table at Pedal the Plains and said many participants and attendees from out-of-town told her that they appreciated the beauty and friendliness of Brush but wished it had more hotels.

Councilman Rick Bain said the city should undertake the study as part of what he said should be an increased focus on marketing.

"I think if we are going to make positive things change with marketing Brush I would not only do something like [this study] because I think it's a good idea but I would like to see our marketing budget increase because I strongly believe that if we are going to get manufacturing business out here we have to do a better of promoting ourselves to the next community over," he said. "I think [the money for the study] could come out of some kind of marketing budget for Brush to try to market ourselves better."

Councilwoman Jeanine Anderson also added that she had worked at one of the city's two hotels last winter and it had often been full, leaving visitors scrambling for a place to stay.

City Manager Monty Torres cautioned that the city should take steps to ensure the study is, in fact, proprietary for the city, before funding it. He said it should also attempt to get potential investors in the hotel to share in the cost of the study as that would show their seriousness about the project.

He also said the councilors should think about whether the city's two existing hotels would be upset that the city was funding such a study to bring in a competitor. However, the council members did not express much concern about that.

"We are a capitalistic society," Bain said. "Competition is good."

Torres said the city should also take time to analyze how the money for the study would be spent before putting it up. He said the money for the study could likely be found in the city's marketing budget.

Purvis also cautioned that just paying for such a study would not ensure that a hotel would be built.

"We still would have to put people together," he said.

Still, he said Cobblestone is optimistic that they would be able to find investors for the project.

"[The representative] did indicate that he has other investors in our region who've invested in [properties] and been very, very, very satisfied with the return on their investment," he said. "He believes that he can convince them to partner with other folks in [Brush] who would be interested in doing something like this."

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.